Goldenwood
by indigo velvet
Summary: My take on what FLauvic might have to say about the events of Crown Duel and, now, Beauty
1. Chapter 1

**A/N/Disclaimer:** This is basically a verbal doodle I started one day when I was bored and started thinking about what Flauvic's take on Crown Duel might have been. I obviously do not own Crown Duel, Flauvic, or anything else you recognize from Crown Duel. I think I'm mostly sticking to the original plot, but I did add a couple tangents that Mel might not have known about. Also, while I did write the scenes from Flauvic's point of view, most of the dialogue from any conversation that includes Meliara is taken from the book. Any dialogue in scenes not in the book uses my own words.

Candlelight flickered through the parlor, drawing gleams and sparkles from gems on gowns and headdresses. The sweet scent of incense drifted through the air with the sound of soft voices, pleasant laughter.

Mother stood at the door, greeting guests as they entered. The Marquis of Shevraeth and Duke Savona entered with the Count of Tlanth and his fiancé. Mother was all courtesy, all graciousness.

A tap on my shoulder; Fialma was there, gesturing to the next couple with an elegant flick of her fan. The Count of Orbanith, accompanied by an unfamiliar woman with long, long auburn hair, bound back with white starstone ties. I turned back to Fialma.

"Well, sister, it seems your suitor is courting someone else."

Her look was beyond disdain, and that alone was enough to tell me that my barb had hit its mark. She'd held that affectation of scorn for me even before Mother passed her up as heir. Not that it made much difference to me whether I held Merindar.

Fialma's hiss, hidden behind a beautifully painted fan, called me back to the parlor.

"That's the Countess of Tlanth, you halfwit."

"Careful, sister. If you hold that expression too long, your face will freeze that way," I said, smiling. I didn't need to look at Fialma to see the sneer on her face. My eyes were on the Countess.

Her coloring was like her brother's, deep blue eyes the color of twilight and dark auburn hair, and, knowing who she was, I could see the family resemblance in the lines of her face. I should have seen it earlier, and I chose to believe I would have, if Fialma hadn't distracted me.

My mother took the countess aside after greeting her, leading her through the crowd to where Fialma and I were standing.

"My dear Countess." Mother's voice was all warm courtesy, an affectation belied by the expression on the Countess's face; nervousness just barely concealed. Certainly she was not a courtier. "Welcome. Permit me to introduce my children, Fialma and Flauvic. The rest of the company you know."

"Welcome," Fialma said, voice so listless it was barely audible. Her eyebrows were raised slightly, disdainful, her whole bearing suggesting that she just couldn't be bothered with courtesy. More likely she was still irritated that the Countess arrived with Deric. A stupid pose, and a thoroughly false one. "Delighted to…" She shrugged, flicked her fan open. The pause stretched.

"…meet you, Countess," I finished, when it became obvious that Fialma had nothing more to say. She looked at me, trying to judge the meaning of that perhaps. Politeness? Humor? Insult? I took her hand, bowed over it. The candlelight caught a gleam from a ring on her finger. A sapphire, set in a silver band. Familiar. An old ring. Where had I seen it before?

A puzzle. I glanced back at her as she followed Deric to the next room, meeting her startled gaze over the Count of Orbanith's shoulder. She turned away swiftly, blushing with the realization that she'd been caught staring. I smiled.

Fialma turned away, following the couple out of the room. I lingered for a while. I wanted to speak to the Countess, to see if I could find where that ring had come from, but perhaps it was best not to be too blunt. Meliara had no skill for courtliness, and her face said she didn't know what to make of the Merindars, happy family that we were. After all, my uncle had thrown her in prison, but hadn't he also made it necessary for me to leave the country if I wanted to live past the age of ten?

I raised two fingers to the thin scar that ran along my jaw, so old it was barely visible, just a pale line where Galdran had struck me across the face when I was six, his jeweled ring leaving a cut that still showed.

I crossed into the next room a few minutes later. Fialma was her usual sweet self, discussing what made a duel with Vidanric and Lady Tamara, or, rather, letting them discuss it and dropping hints that they were both wrong. Count Branaric talked of horses and racing with Lady Renna. Meliara sat by Tamara, sipping a glass of punch, silent. Her ring caught the light again, and again I knew it was familiar. Where…?

A portrait. Of course. Liannara Renselaeus. The present Marquis's great-grandmother. Why did Meliara have her ring? I glanced from Meliara to Vidanric, then to Tamara. She was smiling at Vidanric, waving her fan. All Athanarel knew she was courting him, even I, despite any pretence of reclusiveness (if Vidanric sent spies to watch me, couldn't I do the same for him?). But Meliara was said to avoid the Marquis whenever possible. I dropped my gaze back to her face, in time to see her brow furrow in confusion as she looked away from me.

There was a riddle that demanded solving. But not now. I turned my thoughts back to the conversation.

"Duel or dabble," said the Count of Tlanth, "I'd hie me to those practices, except I just can't stomach rough work at dawn. Now, make them at noon, and I'm your man!"

Laughter greeted his blunt words, and I joined in. He turned to me. "How about you? Join me in agitating for a decent time?"

I smiled, holding my fan between my fingers. The Count of Tlanth amused me, but I was less than interested in joining Vidanric and Savona for swordsmanship sessions, particularly sessions where I'd have to feign the clumsiness of a scholarly recluse.

"Not at any time, Tlanth. You will forgive me if I am forced to admit that I am much too lazy?"

My mother's voice rang out above polite laughter.

"You are all lazy, children. Come!" And, with a gesture towards the artfully arranged food, "Do you wish to insult my tastes?"

The group rose politely, and as several guests converged on the tables of food, Mother approached Meliara, whispering in her ear, and led her to rise. Meliara looked back as she was led from the room, confusion and surprise plain on her face.

Arthal couldn't possibly mean to try and recruit her to that clumsy abomination she called a plan! Could she? And _now,_ of all times! Everyone in the room would note that she'd taken the Countess aside!

Meliara's eyes met mine as they reached the door. I held her gaze for a moment, then flicked my fan up, just for a moment, a swordsman's gesture. On guard. Her eyes widened, then she followed my mother from the room.

I wanted to hear what Mother planned to say to her, but my absence would be noted if I left now. I wouldn't want my dear cousin Vidanric to think I was up to something.

Ezrin Halefeld stood before me in my chambers.

"What's your will, Lord?" the spy asked me. I'd summoned him as soon as the last guests had left Merindar House.

I took a breath. "I want to see any messages that the Countess of Tlanth sends or receives, and I want to know who they're from and where they're headed. Don't stop any messages, simply copy their contents and tell me to whom they're sent."

Ezrin bowed and left with no other comment than a simple "Yes, Lord." I sat down on a cushion, pouring a cup of coffee from the pot I'd had brought up to my rooms, but I didn't drink. I stood, paced to the window and stared out at the gardens of Athanarel.

Certainly there was more to the Countess of Tlanth than even she perhaps knew.

My first letter of Meliara's was delivered to me before the bells rang for whitechange. I sat in my study, reading, when a knock sounded from the door.

"Enter." Ezrin pulled aside the tapestry. "Back so soon?"

"A letter, my Lord. From Lady Tlanth to the Marquis of Shevraeth. Not addressed, and the opening reads 'Dear Unknown,' but it was delivered to him."

Perfect. Did she write without knowing who she wrote to?

"Thank you, Ezrin." I paused, considering. "See if any of the runners along the route delivered a ring to the Countess some little time ago, and if there was any note accompanying it. Possibly an anonymous one." I smiled. "I trust I needn't warn you to be discreet?"

"Of course not, my lord."

"Thank you. You may go."

I opened the letter. It had been copied, Meliara's handwriting traced perfectly onto the translucent paper, down to the words she'd crossed out.

_Dear Unknown, _she wrote._ You probably won't want to answer a letter, but I need some advice on Court etiquette, without my asking being noised around, and who could be more closemouthed than you? Let's say I was at a party, and a high-ranking lady approached me…_

So. That was what had transpired with my mother. Two questions answered at once. I smiled.

Another note from Ezrin waited for me when I arose. Vidanric's reply had come in the form of a memoir by the Duchess Nirth Masharlias. He had not brought the book, for my orders had told him not to interfere with the delivery of any messages. Inspection of the book had showed neither a letter slipped into its page, nor any mark written on it that seemed to contain a message. A single petal of starless had marked the Duchess's account of a mock duel with the then-Count of Orbanith. I was familiar with the book, and remembered enjoying that scene in particular. I smiled.

Ezrin had also done his best to discover whether the ring had passed along the runners' line. No one remembered delivering a ring, but both a white rose and a porcelain sphere that might have contained some jewelry had been delivered to the Countess, neither accompanied by a note.

Could she really be ignorant of whom she wrote to? And why would she open her heart to a faceless stranger?

I saw the Meliara herself far sooner than I had expected. I was sitting on the terrace behind Merindar House, papers spread out on the table before me, when a scattering of pebbles landed on the terrace behind me.

I held still, startled. Surely no spy of Vidanric's would be so careless as that? I turned slowly. Meliara stood at the edge of the terrace, the hem of her walking dress stained with mud, a few stray flower petals in her hair. Not, I thought, a deliberate effect, but charming all the same. I smiled.

"Serenades are customarily performed by moonlight, or have fashions here changed?" I rose from my seat and crossed the terrace to her, murmuring an illusion over the papers to conceal the fact that I was reading a careful copy of her latest correspondence with my cousin.

"I don't know," she said. "No one's serenaded me, and as for my serenading anyone else, even if I wanted to, which I don't, my singing voice sounds like a sick crow."

I couldn't help but smile a little wider at that. "To what, then, do I owe the honor of this delightful—though admittedly unorthodox—visit?"

She raised her fan, still closed, held it to the duelist's guard position. "That. You did that when your mother took me aside last night. I want to know what you meant by it."

I was surprised. Not at the question's directness—it was common knowledge that, like her cousin, she favored the blunt—but that she'd walked halfway across the gardens and surprised me here just to ask it. Why?

Probably for the same reason I was reading her correspondence. To know more. What plans did she have, then? Did she have _any_ plans? I didn't even know whether she was for Shevraeth or against him, for all her directness, and I hated not to know, when I should be able to read her as easily as I read any of the courtiers in Athanarel. As easily as I read anyone.

"You do favor the blunt, don't you?"

"I favor truth over style," she retorted, half angry. Oh, dear; I'd annoyed her. _Truth over style,_ how charmingly naïve. I smiled, kept my face blank, pleasant.

"Having endured the blunt style favored by my late Uncle Galdran," _may he rot in his grave, _"which had little to do with truth as anyone else saw it, I beg you to forgive me when I admit that I am more dismayed than impressed."

She appeared to think for a moment. "All right," she said, seemingly mollified. "So there can be truth with style, as well as the opposite. It's just that I haven't been raised to think that I'd find much truth in Court, though there's plenty of style to spare there."

Well. Naïve, maybe, but she wasn't unintelligent. And honest, a refreshing combination. A scholarly recluse was allowed so few interesting conversations.

"Will I seem unnecessarily contentious if I admit that my own life experience has engendered me with a preference for style, which at least has the virtue of being diverting?"

I paused, looking past her. "Not so diverting is the regrettable conviction that truth doesn't exist."

"Doesn't exist? Of course it does!"

"Is your truth the same as mine? I wonder." Do you know who your letters go to? Why do you trust a faceless stranger? Would you have the throne?

What is truth? What you see with your eyes? And yet, doesn't everyone see something different? Memory itself is a distorting mirror, and the eyes cannot see through illusion. What else is there? Something higher, truth, that we can see only as light reflecting from the facets of a ring, the true jewel hidden in the brilliance? Can we ever know what is really true?

Meliara sighed. "All right, then, you've neatly sidestepped my question—if you even intended to answer it."

I laughed at her bluntness and at myself, because I'd underestimated her again, thinking she'd forget her purpose. I bowed deeply, pulling illusion from the air. A bouquet of flowers, and, as she held out her hands, a shower of sparks, a flight of butterflies, insubstantial as light. I clapped my hands, let the vision dissolve.

"Magic!" she breathed. "You know magic?"

"This is merely illusion. A fad in Sles Adran. Or it was. No one is permitted to study true magic unless invited by the Council of Mages, as agreed on by the royal treaty." Maybe that had been a foolish display, but it was only illusion, and who would she think to tell?

"I'd love to learn it," she said. "Real magic or not."

I shrugged, increasingly convinced that I had not been wise. This could become inconvenient, if she insisted on wanting to learn. "I could show you a few tricks, but I've forgotten most of them. You'd have to ask a play magician to show you—that's how we learned."

"Play magician?" She didn't know the term.

"Ah," I said, remembering. "Plays here are still performed on a bare stage, without illusion to dress it."

She frowned. "Well, some players now have painted screens and costumes, as in two plays here during recent days. I take it you haven't seen them?"

"I so rarely leave the house," I replied,_ due to my cousin's unfortunate habit of setting spies to tail me._ I hoped, fervently, that none of them had heard the beginning of this conversation. I did not, _not_ need Vidanric Renselaeus to hear that Flauvic, supposed recluse on his estates, was secretly performing magic tricks for the Countess of Tlanth's benefit.

Vidanric himself was waiting around the next corner, on horseback and accompanied by Savona. Certainly not a coincidence; one watcher, at least, had informed the lords that Meliara had sought out my company. With luck, he or she had scampered off as soon as we began talking, and missed my stupid little demonstration.

It took a very short time for them to decide, amidst a torrent of mutually insincere compliments, that my presence was not necessary, and they soon set off with the Meliara in tow, and looking as though she hadn't quite caught up with events.

I thought. She _did _seem keen to avoid Vidanric. She'd been horrified to see him riding down the path. And that, like her last letter, implied more than ever that she didn't know who she wrote to.

I sighed, turning back towards Merindar House. I wasn't sure whether or not I was relieved that she'd gone.

It was only two days later that I heard from her again—two eventful days, for her. I cannot think of anyone else in Athanarel who could contrive to get publicly drunk and yet retain all her popularity and then some—and, of course, make the good, moral choice and not ruin little Tamara Chamadis's reputation.

It was only a short note, two lines asking for my advice on a matter of fashion—notable in that, unlike so much of her correspondence that I read, it was addressed to me.

I penned a quick reply and gave it to a servant to deliver.

I rose late the next morning, and was breakfasting on the terrace, reading a history of the Treaty of Two Rivers, when Fialma interrupted me—strangely, as I had marked with great satisfaction that today was the day that she and Mother would return to Merindar and leave me in peace (and privacy. You know your family affairs are in a sorry state when your own sister insists on searching your room—not that Fialma is intelligent enough to find any of my private papers.).

She looked at me. "So here you are, wasting time over your breakfast and your book. We are _leaving._ You can read in the carriage."

I smiled. "But Fialma, dear, as I've said numerous times, I am not going to Merindar."

She laughed. "Don't be an idiot, Flauvic; of course you are. Your things are in the carriage; Mother told the servants to pack them, as you hadn't made any arrangements. Now _come."_

"I am _not going_." I stood, angry. "Where is Mother?"

"The entrance hall," Fialma answered, tight-lipped.

I brushed past her as I walked back inside.

Arthal was standing at the center of the entrance hall's mosaic floor, surrounded by bags and bustling servants. She looked up as I entered.

"Why, Flauvic, have you decided to grace us with your presence?"

I took a deep breath. "I believe I mentioned that I _am not_ going to Merindar?"

She frowned, her face shadowed. "Of course you are," she said levelly. Trying the role of mother, gentle but firm, with ice under the calm. I recognized it from when I was a child: _you will do as I command,_ it said. But I was too old for it now.

"You had no right to order my bags packed."

"I had every right!" she snapped. "You are coming. _We_ need you to support our plan. Don't you _want _Merindar to take back the throne?"

"I refuse be part of that muddy-minded jumble you call a plan!" I shouted. "I am not going!"

"Yes, you are," she snarled. "I made you heir to Merindar, but I can take that away if I choose!"

I waited a moment to still my breath, calm my anger. I smiled. "So take it. What makes you think I care?"

She gaped. I turned to a servant, who stood, watching our argument nervously.

"Fetch my things and bring them back to my room," I ordered.

The man hesitated, glancing first at me, then at my mother.

"Do it!" I shouted, and he scampered away.

"I'm not going," I told her, and walked away.

I slammed my fist into the wall, hard enough to bruise my knuckles. Cursed. I leaned against the wall for a moment, then pushed myself back, breathing. Free. My elbow caught a large painted vase sitting on the sideboard, brought it crashing to the floor. Sartoran porcelain. My mother had particularly liked that vase. Shattered now. I brought my shoe down on the almost-whole curve of the side, splintering it until it held no recognizable shape.

"My lord?" A maid stood timidly at the door.

"What?"

"T-the Countess of Tlanth. Is here to see you," she stammered, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Oh? Wonderful. Have her taken to my sunroom…" I gestured to the vase. "And get someone to clean that up."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **Yeah, yeah, I own nothing. And isn't that sad? Oh, and I'm still stealing dialogue (have you noticed how the entire SCENE is dialogue?)

**A/N:** I hadn't originally been sure if I was going to continue this—I pretty much started it as a writing exercise. But I guess it's pretty fun to write, so here's a second chapter, so please review (feed the author?). Although, actually, I don't love this chapter. I got really sick of that long scene by the time I was done with it, and I was really just too tired to add much more.

I reached the sunroom moments before a servant showed Meliara in. It was a room I occasionally used as a study, brightly lit by a wall of glass windows that opened out on a waterfall. I had crossed to them, about to step through onto the grass, when the door clicked open behind me.

"You do like being near water, don't you?" Meliara's voice sounded softly behind me. I stepped back, turned towards her, brushing the hair back from my forehead.

"Forgive me for not coming to the door. I must reluctantly admit that I have been somewhat preoccupied with the necessity of regaining my tranquility."

She took a few steps towards me, seemingly surprised. Well, hopefully that meant it wasn't immediately apparent that several minutes before I'd been shouting curses and smashing china.

"That wasn't caused by me, I hope?" she asked with a smile.

I shook my head, smiling a little. "Family argument. Forbearance is not, alas, a hallmark of the Merindar habit of mind."

She considered for a moment, but, whatever she thought, she merely said, "I'm sorry for it, then. Ought I to go? If the family's peace is cut up, I suppose a visitor won't be welcome."

What, going already? I supposed she was developing a habit of appearing unexpectedly and leaving rather precipitously, but I'd hoped for a conversation, at least.

"If you mean you'd rather not walk into my honored parent's temper—or, more to the point, my sister's—fear not. They departed early this morning to our family's estates. I am quite alone here." Thank life for that. "Would you like to lay aside your hat and gloves?"

"Not necessary," she answered, seeming to consider my words, or their implications. Well, all the better if she thought I wasn't a part of my mother's plan. She wouldn't even be wrong.

She looked up, met my eyes for a long moment, then lowered her eyes to the floor. She was blushing.

"I came to ask a favor of you," she said, sounding as though she'd been planning to say something completely different.

"Speak, then," I said, unable to keep a shade of laughter from my voice.

She looked up and sighed. "It concerns the party I must give for my brother's coming marriage," she said, glancing at me again, and back to the floor.

Oh? "You must forgive my obtuseness, but you could have requested your assistance by letter." Or had she come with some other reason in mind? More questions? Or—I couldn't see her coming to court me, but, well, here she was. And she was certainly blushing more than I'd expect of one on a political errand.

"I did," she said, confused, and then paused. "Oh. _Oh!"_

She looked horrified. No doubt she'd just experienced some interesting private revelation. Did she only just realize how her coming to see me might be interpreted?

I reached out and touched her wrist, traced the line of her arm. She shivered and closed her eyes, and I leaned forward and kissed her.

It lasted for just a moment—then she stumbled away, gasping, her hands shaking as she straightened her dress.

I'll admit that I was breathing just as hard as she was. I took a step back, resting my weight against the back of an elegantly carved couch, catching my breath. I was half-laughing again, for no real reason.

"Change your mind, little Countess?"

She nodded—shook her head—dropped her gaze to the floor so that that long hair almost hid her face, and finally shrugged. I laughed aloud. She looked like…

…so young. I caught my breath, took her hand to pull her back to the window, looking out over the water, shifting beneath the troubled clouds.

"It is not merely the sight of water that I find salubrious. Its function as a metaphor for study is as… as adaptable—"

"You were going to say fluid," she interrupted.

I smiled.

"I was not," I scolded. "I would never be so maladroit." And it was true, even if I had thought fluid. I would never have actually _said_ it. "As adaptable, to resume our discourse," I continued, "as its inherent properties." For what, in the end, does not owe something to water? So much of the world is water…It is so much of ourselves. And every change it makes is so perfect, so _fluid…_It is always changing, and always the same, fitting itself to any prison without ever changing its essence. Indestructible. "The clarity, the swift change in movement, the ability to fill the boundaries it encounters, all these accommodating characteristics blind those who take its utility and artistry for granite and overlook its inexorable power." A mere trickle of water over time has the power to wear away mountains.

Thunder rumbled overhead, as the sky opened and water cascaded down the window in lacy streams, turning the world outside into a swimming haze of color. I looked back to Meliara, remembering that she'd come for a reason—and, self-flattery aside, it hadn't been to court me.

"How may I be of service?"

She took a breath. "My brother's party. I want it to be special. I just found out that it's a custom, and to cover my ignorance I would like to make it _seem_ I've been planning it a long time, so I need some new idea. I want to know what the latest fashion in Sartor's—or Sles Adran's—court is, and I thought the best thing I could do would be to come to you."

"So you do not, in fact, regard me as an arbiter of taste?" I asked with a smile, knowing she did. "You wound me."

She blushed and gritted her teeth.

"You _know_ you're an arbiter of taste, Flauvic. If you think I'm here just to get you to parrot out the latest fad in Nente, then you're, well, I know you don't believe it. And I didn't think you prodded for compliments."

I laughed aloud, and when I looked back at Meliara she wore a very strange expression. I bit back curiosity.

"There's never any one fad," I told her. "Or if there is, it changes from day to day. A current taste is for assuming the mask of the past."

"Like?" she asked, gazing into the distance as though she could see the past through the rain shimmering and threading itself down the window panes.

"Like choosing a time from history, say—six hundred years ago, and everyone who comes must assume the guise of an ancestor."

She bit her lip. "Well, my mother was a Calahanras, but it seems to me—and I know I'm not exactly subtle—that it would not be in the best of taste to assume the guise of royalty for this party."

"You have your father's family as well. Family Astiar and Family Chamadis have intermarried, ah, twice that I know of. One of those was a love match, almost three hundred years ago—Thirav Astiar and Haratha Chamadis. It would also be a compliment to Nimiar, for it was her ancestor Haratha who considerably boosted the family's prestige by her part in the Treaty of the Seven Rivers."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, her face lighting up. "I knew you'd think of something! But is there a part for me? I have to be prominent, being hostess."

I raised my eyebrows.

"You don't know your own family's history?"

She flushed, delight turning to annoyance. "We barbarians are ignorant, yes, mostly because my father burned most of our books after my mother died."

"He did?" What had sent the old Countess to her death, that her husband had rebelled against her books? "Do you know why?"

"I don't have any idea. Probably will never find out. Anyway, there was no history of any kind for me to read until I began last year by ordering new ones, and very few of those mention the Astiar family."

I bowed an apology, feeling clumsy—for inadvertently bringing up her mother's death, for showing her my magic, for my inability to understand her…because she'd pulled away from me. Life, didn't I have enough problems without trying to court the stubborn, wayward, barefoot Countess of Tlanth?

"Forgive me. I had not known. As for your part, that's a shade more difficult, for Thirav had no sisters. However, there were two female cousins, either of whom you might assume the guise of." I thought back to my reading—and of the same morning. "Ardis was the more prominent of the two."

Not that her character suited Meliara. But—why not a challenge? She had, or could have had, great influence over the court, and yet she did nothing. Why?

"Ardis," she mused. "I suppose there are no portraits—"

"But you could safely order a gown based on court fashions of the time. The point here is, if people are to get their costumes ordered in time, you must be speedy with your invitations."

She smiled tartly. "Costumes are easily ordered. What you mean is, to give everyone time to dive into their family histories if they aren't as well read as you are."

"Precisely. It is a shame that so few have the time or inclination for scholarship these days. There is much amusement to be afforded in perusing the mistakes of our forebears." And much insight, too.

I'd spoken lightly, but her expression had changed to wariness by the time I was done.

"For what purpose?" she asked.

"More curiosity," I replied. "I never involve myself in political brangles." Which was, at the best, a barefaced lie, but she didn't need to know that.

She sighed, then put on an expression of somewhat forced cheerfulness. She shouldn't try to lie; she did it so badly.

"Thanks for the advice. I'd better get to my own studies."

"You don't wish to stay for some refreshment?"

She shook her head and gestured to the now-sunny outdoors. "I think I'd better go now, before it comes back."

I walked her to the door and saw her leave.

Whatever reason she'd come for, it hadn't been merely to ask me about her brother's party, or refuse to let me kiss her. I could only surmise that she hadn't gotten it. So she left, and I stayed, and we both went unsatisfied.

I wished that I could count her on my side, but she didn't trust me. I read that in her face—when she'd asked about my warning, when she'd pulled away form my kiss, when she'd heard me speak of long-ago mistakes and heard the tone of my true purpose. She might be the only one with all the pieces and inclination to guess at my plan, if she thought to do so.

And yet I couldn't stop playing with her, couldn't help but underestimate her, even as I knew she suspected me. But then didn't everyone?

My house was a self-imposed prison. For the next month, I went no farther from the Merindar residence than a short stroll through the gardens could take me, and that alone. I had no visitors, save servants and Ezrin, and I visited no one.

My mother had met with the Duke of Grumareth on her journey back to Merindar, but I didn't care what they'd spoken of; I knew her plans by heart anyway. The soldiers would move in a month; then I, too, would move. Spies now brought me correspondence from my mother as well, or I used charms to listen to her meetings at Merindar. I watched her plans drawing together, swift and futile.

And things at Athanarel drew together as well. An invitation to Meliara's party arrived. It would be the night Mother's troops were scheduled to move. I debated with myself for a time—but why not? The entire court would be there—and it seemed a fitting gesture of disdain for Arthal's plan.

I worked late into the night, practicing spells. I read. The spell I needed could be anchored, sustaining itself at least in part. I needed it to last. I practiced the casting, practiced holding it in my mind until I thought I would scream with the endless preparation.

My plans were finished. I had only to wait on Arthal, who would be my disguise. And the wait, for me, was endless.

I was ready. When would Mother move?

**A/N:** Yeah, I'm back, good job if you're still here. I did warn you it wasn't great, but please review anyway (I WILL shamelessly beg, plead, cajole, and threaten to get reviews, so just humor me and press the little button-thing.)


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: OK, short update, and didn't it take a pathetically long time for me to write two pages? More soon hopefully, and please review anyway.

Disclaimer: Well, I asked for Flauvic for Christmas, but all I got was a lump of coal. So I still own nothing. Wah.

_Nothing of the coronation will be announced until the sculptors have finished refashioning a goldenwood throne for a queen._

The thin scrap of paper held only one line, traced from my cousin's hand.

So he loved her. So he wanted her to be his queen.

There would be no coronation at all. Or none for Vidanric, at least.

I turned back to Ezrin.

"My lord?"

"You may stop bringing me these papers. They no longer interest me."

"As you will." He bowed and left.

I threw the letter onto the fire and watched the flames eat through it.

Tonight. I stood before the mirror, dressed in finery for Meliara's ball. Tonight I would play my ancestor. Tonight I would play myself. Tonight I would make history.

It was early yet to leave for Branaric and Nimiar's wedding party. But I planned to put the time to good use.

I slipped from the door of my sun room, cloaked in illusion. To Vidanric's watchers, I would be nothing but a shadow, a blur in the corner of their eyes. Anticipation made my pulse quicken.

I left the gates of Athanarel, walked their circumference in the twilight, laying preparations. Writings in Old Sartorean traced upon the walls at north, south, east, west. And a word spoken, a sign shaped in the air. I could feel the magic drawing closer, heavy as velvet on my lips, against my skin, the shock of it as thrilling as it had always been, from the time I first cast the bare bones of illusion.

Pacing that long dark walk, I remembered those first spells, that feeling of power, of exhilaration. And the magic flowed through me, ringing Athanarel, its cares and its petty worries; beauty, competition. Power.

My final spell would not be cast tonight. Not yet. But now I set the foundations for it, made the tenets on which it would rest.

And when Vidanric heard of my mother's plot…then I would move.

I came late to the city ballroom where the Count of Tlanth's wedding celebration would be held. I shed the spell of concealment as I entered, avoiding guards and servants. No need for a public announcement of my tardiness—the smarter few might think to wonder what had been occupying the reclusive son of Merindar. The thought was almost enough to make me want to test it…who would guess my secret?

But everyone would know soon enough. Much better that it should come as a surprise.

Music rang through the ballroom, bells and flutes piping a wild tune unlike the dances of today. The walls were hung with flowers, and the sound of falling water drifted from somewhere out of sight. I spotted Meliara, crossed the room to where she stood.

She turned from contemplation of the dance to look at me, clearly startled. I bowed over her hand, smiling.

"Beautifully done," I said, gesturing to the ballroom. It was true—she had created a masterpiece.

She smiled. "It was your suggestion."

"You do great credit to my poor idea," I replied with a bow.

"Will you walk with me?" she asked after a moment.

I accepted, and for a time we walked the room's perimeter, speaking of the past. Once or twice, I glanced up to find Vidanric watching us. Good. He would remember that I had been friendly to her. And perhaps, doubting his countess, he would make mistakes.

I wondered what would happen if it were Mother who returned triumphant to Athanarel. Ironic, to find her son waiting, and a palace of statues, where she had expected to find a buzz of defeated courtiers…

I left Meliara to speak with other acquaintances, moving from group to group with a few easy words. Finding out where each would be tomorrow, when I made my move.

The scarf dances began as the bells tolled white change, drums beating out a distant heartbeat as the dancers rushed across the floor.

I searched the crowd, found Meliara's face just as she looked up from the dancers and into my eyes.

I had one moment of breathlessness, and then I stood, circling the dancers to come towards her.

Her eyes widened as she saw me move, and I laughed silently, smiling.

"I make you my compliments, Meliara. A remarkable achievement."

Her face was questioning, but she said nothing.

"Do you think your dances will become a fad again?" I asked, looking back to the dancers.

"Depends on who asks for them to be played," she said carelessly. "You always could," she added after a pause. "Guaranteed, the latest rage."

I laughed and saluted her, stepping closer.

"I wish that you had been granted the right tutor."

And I left, slipping through the doorway and out into the night.

A/N: Yep, short and bad. Oh, and, just to clarify, Flauvic is _not_ casting the stone spell at the beginning of this chapter. He's just doing preliminary foundation stuff (in Beauty, Elestra describes spellcasting as holding the reins of a horse that's about to break away…this seemed all very well for an illusion or something that'll only last a short time, but that stone spell's in place for more than 2 days, so I figured there'd have to be some process to make it semi-permanent, so the mage could do things like sleep. And well, I had to have _something_ happen in this chapter).

Thanks to everyone who reviewed chapter 2!


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I. Still. Own. Nothing.

**A/N:** Well, it took me long enough to write it (blame the exams I spent the last week not studying for), but this is the end of the Crown Duel part. I think maybe I'll continue it into "Beauty."

I hope the first bit's not too…un-Flauvic.

I couldn't sleep that night. I didn't even try, and when I walked back through the gates of Athanarel, crossed the gardens to Merindar—for I'd come without a carriage—I could barely even sit still to read in my sunroom. I crossed the floor to where moonlight cast its silver ribbons through the glass doors and stepped out into the night.

The sky was full of moon-stained silver clouds, and the horizon was already fading from blue to grey as the sun rose. I stepped to the edge of the pool and sat down in the wet grass, not caring about the likely effect on my clothes.

The horizon brightened to gold, and I lay back in the grass and shut my eyes, feeling sunlight on my face.

I did not, originally, mean to sleep. But I did. And woke up, wet and cold, with a stone digging holes into my spine and my feet trailing in the pond.

My first thought was to wonder what time it was. My second was to hope that no one had seen me sleeping beside the pool.

I slipped back into the house and dripped my way up to my room, cursing silently.

Ezrin Halefeld was waiting for me by the time I had dried off. I saw him in my sun room.

"The Marquis of Shevraeth has left to meet your mother's troups, my lord."

I smiled. "Wonderful. You may go."

He bowed, turning away.

"Ezrin?"

"Yes, my lord?"

"I'd advise you to leave the palace. You won't want to be here shortly."

He bowed again, face pale.

Sun shone through the high windows of the throne room, drawing the glow of a rising sun from the peach-colored tiles that patterned the floor. I crossed the room, mounted the dais to stand before the throne. My throne.

If the rebellion had never happened, I would have stood here as king at my uncle's death. I would have been his heir. I would have had the throne though right of blood, through the right of having survived him. Never mind that Fialma was my elder, that my mother wanted the throne for her own. It would have been mine, in the end.

Now it would be mine by conquest. I reached out to lay my hands on the throne's armrests, stood before the empty chair and shut my eyes and imagined spitting in Galdran's face.

_I will win this on my own. I will sit here, as king, without any right of blood, with no more right than Shevraeth, with no more right than the Count of Tlanth. And this throne will be just as much mine as if I had been the worthy son of a good king who ruled long and well and died in his sleep one night in his own age._

_I am glad I am not that worthy prince._

Behind me the door opened. I turned around.

"What—Flauvic!"

It was the Duke of Grumareth, panting and white-faced.

"Your mother's troups…they're fighting the King's men south of Orbanith. He—Shevraeth—he knew we were coming…"

"I should think that he did," I replied. "You can't have thought Vidanric would ignore such an obvious plot…" I let my words trail off. The Duke wrung his hands in terror.

"Came to warn you—it's too much to hope your family won't be taken—but we could escape—wait and show them we won't be beaten—" He smiled, looked slyly at me.

"You could be king with my help, boy."

Of course. Trying to salvage what he could. I smiled and raised my hand, the words of the spell on my lips.

"I am king now."

I spoke it them, and in that instant, when the magic roared through the palace, touching noble and servant, courtier and stable boy and chambermaid and spy, the Duke of Grumareth fell to his knees before the throne of Remalna.

Pale, cold faces, hands the chill of death. Pleasant faces frozen in smiles, laughter, in a moment of doubt that stretched forever now. Athanarel was a palace of statues.

I was the only living thing within these walls. I was tired. I slept, and when I woke at sunset, I wandered to the kitchens myself to find food. No runners, no servants to fetch and carry or cooks to prepare meals.

Pomp and finery, manners, schemes, desires, all come to nothing. Stone. A master sculptor's work. Cold as stone.

He came on the second day. My cousin Vidanric, former heir to the throne. I saw him in a mirror, a spell I had cast to show who came and went through Athanarel's front gate. No army rode behind him, but one little countess stood beside him as he entered.

I was sitting in the throne room. The sun was sinking red behind the palace's western wall.

The two stepped through the door, looked around in confusion. I waited until I knew that they both saw me.

"What took you so long, my dear cousin Vidanric?"

His face was blank, but I knew he was afraid. "Administrative details."

"For which I thank you," I said, half-bowing to him from the dais. "Tiresome details." I looked to Meliara, feigned surprise.

"Meliara. This is a surprise; I took you for a servant."

I'd expected a scowl; instead she grinned. "You have an objection to honest work?"

I smiled. Perhaps she'd recovered from her hatred of Shevraeth, but she hadn't changed. It was too much to hope that she'd still despise my cousin. I hadn't even known that she'd ridden with the army.

"This," I said to her, with a gesture to Vidanric, "I hadn't foreseen. And it's a shame. I'd intended to wake you for some diversion, when things were settled."

She paled. Good.

"You included sorcery among your studies in Nente?" asked Vidanric lazily.

"I did," I told him, spreading my hands to indicate the statues by the doors—and, of course, Grumareth's groveling figure. "So much easier than troubling oneself with tiresome allies and brainless lackeys." Not to mention power-mongering relatives.

Meliara bit her lip. Realizing that she'd known all along. I gave them both a minute to think, then continued.

"I take it you wish to forgo the exchange of niceties and proceed right to business." I paused; no one spoke. Both still looked stunned.

"Very well," I said, taking silence for acquiescence. I stepped down from the dais to the frozen Duke of Grumareth. "Athanarel serves as a convenient boundary. I have everyone in it under this stone-spell. I spent my time at Meliara's charming entertainment the other night ascertaining where everyone of remotest value to you would be the next day, and I have my people with each right now. You have a choice before you. Cooperate with me—obviating the need for tedious efforts that can be better employed elsewhere—or else, one by one, they will suffer the fate as our erstwhile friend here."

I gestured towards the man at my feet and drew a knife from a wrist sheath. The room rang as the blade connected with the statue, and crashed to the floor, splintering into innumerable shards.

"That will be a nasty mess when I do lift the spell," I said quietly. "But then we won't have to see it, will we?"

The room was silence. Meliara bit her lip, swallowed, then started forward. I raised the knife.

"Don't," said Vidanric, eyes not leaving mine. "He knows how to use that knife."

I smiled and saluted him. "Observant of you. I worked so hard to foster the image of the scholarly recluse. When did you realize that my mother's plans served as my diversion?" _Whenever it was, it hadn't been soon enough._

He sighed. "As I was walking in here, recent events having precluded the luxury of time for reflection."

I smiled, and, to keep myself from gloating too much, turned to Meliara and bowed.

"I fault no one for ambition," I said, with a glance at Vidanric. "If you wish, you may gracefully exit now and save yourself some regrettably painful experience. I like you. Your ignorance is refreshing, and your passions amusing. For a time we could keep each other company." I knew, saying it, that she would refuse.

She opened her mouth, and I prepared for her insults, smiling.

She took a breath. She shut her mouth. Opened it again, and said, in a perfect imitation of a courtier's drawl, "Unfortunately, I find you boring."

I felt my cheeks redden. I hated underestimating her. She'd thought, and she'd _known_ I would hate that. I turned back to Vidanric, reminding myself that it didn't matter at this point what barbs she came up with.

"Well?" I asked the Marquis. "There is much to be done, and very soon you militia leaders will be clamoring for orders. We'll need to begin as we mean to go on, which means that _you_ must be the one to convince them of the exchange of kings."

He bowed his head. Wind whistled in the silence. Meliara sniffled.

"What'll happen to us?"

"Well, my dear Meliara, that depends," I said. The wind was picking up…

"Will you save Bran and Nee from being smashed if I—" she choked on the words. Sound resonated in the floor, set the wood of the goldenwood throne humming under my fingertips.

I stared at her. "Why the sudden affect of cowardice?"

I already knew. I'd underestimated her. Again.

She smiled, triumphant now.

"For time. Look outside."

I leaped from the dais and ran to the doors, stood under the eaves of Athnarel's throne room and looked out.

The Hill Folk had gathered, like an army of trees, solemn in the rising dusk. Their melodies played on the wind, and their eyes sang a song too bright for human ears to hold. I wrenched myself from their gazes, turned back to Meliara and pulled her to me before she could step away, the knife against her throat.

"This is your work."

I turned to face Vidanric, pulling Meliara back into the throne room with me, away from that army of trees. I could not fight them with magic.

"Tell them to vanish," I told the Marquis, knowing that he couldn't. Meliara kicked at me, tried to break free. "Tell them to vanish, or she dies."

Terror is a taste like copper in your mouth. Terror is the knowledge that you are helpless, that everything you know has been swept from under you like a child's house of cards.

"Don't do it!" Meliara called to him.

Music thundered across the hall. Their magic built in the air. I had no way of reading this spell, no way of blocking it. I had no way to fight this.

"Tell them now!" My voice cracked. I dropped the knife, loosed Meliara, stumbled clumsily up the steps of the dais, intent forming.

I raised my hands for the spell. Stone…If it worked for even a moment…if it broke their casting…

I never found out what might have happened. Their magic, as thick as water in the air, rushed over me, drenched me, and I was drowning.

Sight faded, but light grew more intense. Sound was distant, and I heard their drums in the mountains, dreamed their waking dreams. No body, no hands or face or strength. Light defined me: cool pale dawn above, sunlight drunk like water. And below, darkness, earth, and the slow ebb of water below the earth. Roots sinking deep. Time does not matter. I feel their laughter as they dance in the mountains, and their song sounds out the pulse of water and sun though leaves, through bark, through branches reaching to the sky. This moment lasts forever, with the ebb and flow of light, of darkness, with seasons of laughter in the halls below me, echoes of those quick fragile people who walk on legs and talk in words and laugh and cry and dance…

When the sun turns away, light retreating to winter, I dream that I was once one of them. That I will be one of them again. But here, I know only that I am myself. I have no name.

**A/N:** Thanks so much to Icelands and Enna Rose for reviewing. Hope everyone liked this chapter, and Flauvic didn't get too out of character.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Well. I lied. It's not over yet…Here's the first part of Beauty. Yay for Elestra!

Disclaimer: If I was Sherwood Smith, I wouldn't be posting this on a fanfiction sight. So, obviously, I am not Sherwood Smith.

&&&

In the sunlight, there are voices. Quick as insects, the sweet hum of bees below me, laughter like rain. Emotion pitched like song: humans are so desperate, so willful, every moment bright and dark by turns.

Winter stillness, when the voices give way to silence, leaving me with my dreams…I hear the Hill Folk laughing, distant and near, all around me, their song made to the rhythm of sunlight and dusk, back to dawn, pumping sap through limbs and leaves, the slow trickle of water deep underground.

I am dreaming…starlight, too faint for leaves to drink, but bright to human eyes…water on my face, a human face, salt tears staining, stinging human eyes...How long ago, how long until it passes again? in this form, I know only cycles, consciousness of light and dark, summer and winter, all natural things turning back upon themselves. I do not know how to go back, to memories of power, magic on my lips, the desperate, singing existence of those who run and laugh and cry below me.

Their voices grow clearer, season after season, flirtation and judgment, whispering, shouting around me.

A girl's voice, clear as water, telling secrets to the night…

"They don't see me…just a funny face…"

Changing, daylight, and the hum of many voices…

"Funds for diverting the river…"

"Too likely to cause floods…"

Night again, twilight, dawn, days turning by me. I am fading, growing, losing the harmony of the Hill Folk to change, time moving by me, carrying me with it, breathless, gasping, fearful again.

It is just a moment…as it was before…

And the sinking sun grasps me, holds me in its last rays, transfixed and dwindling, collapsing downwards into myself. With eyes to see, it is blinding, scarlet and gold on my face, and I have a face as I fall to the floor.

Facedown on the cool tiles, I took my first breath in twenty years.

Fists clenched against the floor, I sat up, marveling at the motion. My ears were ringing; the air tasted strange, and I was panting, gulping it down like fresh, cold water after years of thirst.

The sun's last rays slipped past the glass dome overhead (when had the new king built that?), and I was left in darkness.

I sat for a time under the dome, in the space of broken tiles where I had stood for so long, rooted in the earth. Thought was slow in coming, dizzy with seasons of simple existence. But it did not take long to realize that if I was still sitting here when the sun rose, someone would find me.

I didn't want to go back to the past.

Then…

Memories of voices…courtiers and servants, coming in the night to tell their secrets and their sorrows to the tree that had been a mage…I remembered the voice of a girl, a princess, of her mother…

What if Meliara came? I wondered. It would be an amusing end to my time in Remalna, perhaps…and a guaranteed safe passage to the border.

I checked the sheaths at my wrists. One was empty, the knife inside it lost that fateful night twenty years ago…but the second blade I still had. With that and my magic, I could match the one-time Countess easily.

Footsteps in the hallway beyond the throne room, and I ran to press myself against the wall by the doors, out of sight of whoever might enter. Of course, anyone would soon recognize the absence of the goldenwood tree…but by then I'd have them. I drew my dagger.

One of the double doors cracked open, and a slender figure stumbled inside, sniffing. Wan moonlight shone on dull brown hair, a long rose-coloured silk gown. The girl brushed raised a hand to brush the hair out of her eyes—or wipe away tears?—and I recognized who she must be. Meliara's daughter. Not the Queen herself, but good enough.

I paused for a moment, watching her as the door fell shut behind her. She took a deep breath, turning towards the center of the room. I stepped behind her, pressed a hand over her mouth before she saw the tree's absence and screamed.

Her cry was only a squeak; she kicked at me as I pulled her back, too surprised to make any real attempt at breaking free.

"I'd hoped for your mother," I said softly into her ear, "but you'll do."

She tried to scream again, thrashed ineffectually and stamped on my foot. I sighed.

"I don't want to have to kill you. Don't fight."

She went very still, and I took my hand from her mouth, still keeping a hold on her arm, and switching the knife to my free hand. The princess—Elestra was her name, I remembered—Elestra hung her head, panting, her eyes on the knife.

"Come along."

"What?" Her wide eyes flashed to my face. I couldn't see her expression in the shadows, but I rolled my eyes as she didn't move. I tugged at her arm.

"Come along," I repeated. Wondering if this was the sort of conversation I could expect until the border, I contemplated just leaving her there. Who cared if she called the guards?

Pulling her after me, I whispered a spell of concealment. The princess gasped a little as the air around us shimmered, distorted like light through water. We walked in silence through the halls that were both familiar to me and strange after long years of absence. It didn't take long to reach the garden, and I was glad, despite the soft, insistent rain that dampened my hair and made my tunic, heavy velvet, cling soggily to my skin. Those halls held too many memories. The gardens, at least had changed, new paths and flowers opening before me, unfamiliar since long years of sunlight and water…I could almost reach out to them, feel that vital pulse of music that shaped their days…

The spell wavered, almost broke from my concentration, and I brought my mind back to the present, trying to lose memories and think only of the spell. The border of the garden was near, trees towering ahead of us…I almost felt their endless indrawn breath, pulled back from that awareness.

Beside me, Elestra shifted. I gripped the hilt of the knife tightly in my hand. I felt her turning, ready to jump on me or reach for the knife—and then she tripped and fell sprawling into the mess of mud and leaf loam carpeting the ground. I swallowed a yelp of laughter that would probably have been audible within a ten radius. My shoulders were shaking with it as I knelt down beside her.

Elestra might be better company than I had supposed.

"I expect the time has come to negotiate," I said to her, trying, and failing, to keep the laughter out of my voice.

She appeared to think for a moment, then grumbled "If you surrender now, I won't be too hard on you."

I laughed aloud this time. "This is what I had in mind. You come along eithout putting me to trouble, and I'll contrive the journey in comfort."

"No," she said, sounding admirably bold, given the situation. "I don't want to go anywhere."

"I regret the necessity, but I require a hostage, just to the border, and you are it." And very amusing this promises to be, too.

She made a noncommittal noise.

"Well?" I asked. "What shall it be? Comfort or duress?" And, when she stayed silent, "I feel obliged to reiterate that you're going either way."

She sighed—and had to stop and spit out an unfortunate small insect. Pausing—to recollect her dignity?—she gritted her teeth. "So you asking my parole. Just to the border. And then you'll let me be?"

"Correct," I said with a smile.

There was a long pause. Leaves rustled overhead, and a raindrop slipped through their cover and slid down my nose. The wet ground was seeping through the knees of my trousers, and my wet tunic wasn't getting any more comfortable. I tried to keep my mind on those discomforts, on the princess as she lay in the grass, and not on the trees around me. Distantly, I thought that I could hear…_their_ song. I clenched my fists, hoping Elestra wouldn't notice.

"I'll do it." Her voice shook me from my thoughts.

"I have your word, then?" My voice seemed very small in the stillness, and I inwardly cursed the Hill Folk. I had nothing to fear.

"Yes!" she said, with some annoyance. I sighed and sheathed my knife, reaching down to help her up. She ignored my hand and stood on her own, looking down to shake the moss off her skirt and study its interesting mud stains.

The next hour's walk was not enjoyable. I stumbled over roots and stones, trying not to fall, trying not to listen to the rustling of the trees. I had never had any woodscraft, and twenty-odd years as a tree seemed to have only made walking in the woods even more uncomfortable. I stumbled blindly through a patch of briars, biting back a curse. Behind me, I heard the sound of cloth ripping as Elestra tripped through after me. I thought another curse. If we weren't well away by the time someone realized she was missing, anyone looking for us would just have to follow the trail of shredded evening gown. _I _could do that.

And I was tired. No, exhausted. And hungry. After all, I hadn't slept or eaten in twenty years. I wondered whether they'd think to check the deserted old house in the woods, then sighed. It would probably be the first place any searchers looked. And I couldn't even find it…

I tripped out into a clearing. And there was the house, before me, blackened timbers being reclaimed by vines and saplings. The roof had fallen, the stones were scorched…

"It's gone." I was shocked out of all proportion.

Twigs cracked behind me as Elestra stepped into the clearing.

"That was used as a guardhouse by the enemy in the war. My father led a raid. Burned it. No one has been here since." She took a breath. "What did do expect to find."

I sighed, closed my eyes. "Not a ruin."

The second part of the walk was even worse than its beginning. I stumbled through bracken and thorns and tried to keep my eyes open, hearing the trees breathe. More than once, I opened my mouth to say something, anything to Elestra, to drive away that silence with human contact, but every time my words failed. By the time we reached the forest's edge, I felt like the walking dead.

Moonlight cast its faint reflection on the river that wound its way through the valley below us. Not far away, it opened out into a broad bay. A small village stood by the river's edge. Sheep grazed on the hillside below us, like small low-floating clouds.

I sighed and brushed the hair from my eyes. I was tired enough that the world around me seemed to be shaking erratically. I took a few stumbling steps to a grove of willow and sank to the ground beneath it. Elestra followed.

I had just enough energy to cast the spell that would make certain she slept, before my eyes too slipped shut.


End file.
